In the United States, 1 in 9 babies is born prematurely, 1 in 10 in Canada. Worldwide, over 15 million babies are born too soon each year. While not all multiples are born prematurely, a multiple birth increases the probability of an early delivery. Babies born prematurely, before 37 weeks gestation, are at a higher risk for health complications in infancy, some of which can have long-term effects. Full-term infants are not all free from their own health complications, of course.

In honor of November’s Prematurity Awareness Month, led by the March of Dimes, How Do You Do It? is focusing this week’s posts on The Moms’ experiences with premature deliveries, NICU stays, health complications, special needs, and how we’ve dealt with these complex issues.

My pregnancy had been difficult, to say the least. From 6 weeks on, I was beset with a very severe case of “morning” sickness, known as hyperemesis gravidarum. Despite medication, I vomited multiple times every day of my pregnancy (and, in fact, for about a week afterwards). Mr. A did not have a measureable heartbeat at our 7-week ultrasound, and measured very small. He developed a nice, strong heartbeat, but continued to measure behind. When I was 21 weeks, a follow-up anatomy scan revealed a complication, not with the boys, but with me: I had cervical funneling. I was put on bed-rest.

At 23 weeks, a high-risk OB doctor informed me that our Mr. A had fallen completely off his own growth curve, and had a very dim prognosis. The doctor said it was probably a virus, infection, or placental failure. He suggested either delivering between 24 and 26 weeks, or giving up on Mr. A. The panic and helplessness I felt still clutches at my heart. I felt so incredibly torn: why should I punish Mr. D by dooming him to a very premature birth, simply because he was a twin? But how could I give up on Mr. A? Whenever people say, “I always wanted twins!” or wish twins upon someone undergoing fertility treatments, I flash back to this moment, and think no, no, you don’t want twins, please hope instead for a healthy, singleton pregnancy.

It turned out, much to my joy (with a side-dish of pure rage), that Mr. A had no virus, no infection, no failing placenta, but instead an incompetent doctor. The ultrasound machines had switched to different software or something, and hadn’t properly calculated estimated gestational age, and the doctor didn’t bother to look at raw numbers before telling me this dismal news. I had multiple follow-ups at different offices, plus a ton of blood work, and everything was fine. Mr. A was small, but doing just fine.

The weeks crept by, and I remained pregnant. I was even briefly off bed-rest, for 3-week span that included Christmas. I was, however, having very regular contractions. I had non-stress-tests twice a week, and after each one, they wanted to send me to L&D. But my funneled cervix was holding fast, so I remained on bed-rest and carried my boys all the way to my 35th week, much to the amazement of myself and my OB. I was having ultrasounds every 3 weeks to monitor Mr. A’s growth, and he was holding steady on his own curve, with Mr. D riding along at about the 50%ile.

On Tuesday, January 31st, I went in for another NST. My husband happened to have that Tuesday off, and so he came with me. My boys, especially Mr. A, gave the nurses fits at each NST, refusing to stay still for the required 20-minutes of continuous monitoring, stretching these tests into hours-long events. On this day, Mr. A was so wiggly that they decided to simply to a biophysical profile on him instead, and throw in some growth measurements for kicks.

They never got that far. The ultrasound showed Mr. A hadn’t grown in 10 days. He had, according to their measurements, actually shrunk. (I do know that babies do not grow shorter, but they can lose weight. We suspect this is what happened to Mr. A.) More alarmingly, the his umbilical cord was showing reverse blood flow. Mr. D was doing great, but my husband and I were pretty sure we knew what was coming.

But first we had to wait. The tech could not say, “These babies are coming out.” Even the high-risk OB would not say, “Today is the day.” I was sent to my regular OB’s office, where we waited. In the mean time, I called my younger sister, who is an OB in a different state, and left her a voicemail explaining what was going on. And my mother called me, and so I told her as well. About 4 hours after my NST should have been, my OB sat down with me and my husband, and said that she would schedule a c-section for 5 pm, so not to eat or drink. I had very much wanted a vaginal delivery, and she was even willing to perform a breech extraction, but with both my boys being transverse and with my lower baby being significantly smaller than my upper baby, that was off the table. I had kind of seen this coming, and really, the bottom line of my birth plan was “everyone out, alive”, so c-section it was.

The following 2.5 hours were very strange. We went home, I packed a bag and took a picture of my pregnant belly. My husband went to his office to finalize his FMLA. I watched an old episode of “The Daily Show”, thinking, “This will be the last time I sit on this couch without a baby in my house.”

I was wrong about that. While plenty of 35-weekers do indeed come home from the hospital with their moms, with little to no NICU stay, such was not to be the case for my boys. I had gotten beta-methasone shots to mature their lungs about a week prior, so I did have reason to hope. However. Mr. D had what is known as “wimpy white male syndrome”—he just did not do as well as girls or babies of other races would do. Mr. A turned out to have a very rare chromosomal abnormality, and would have needed extensive NICU time even if he had been full-term. I believe with all of my heart that the only reason Mr. A survived at all was because he was a twin. If he had been a singleton (as my current pregnancy is proving), I would not have had cervical funneling, extensive contractions, multiple ultrasounds because they simply couldn’t see Mr. D’s diaphragm or Mr. A’s kidneys due to positioning, etc. My OB-sister thinks that perhaps they would have noticed that my belly was measuring small, but frankly I am not convinced. Of course, if Mr. D had been a singleton, he would very likely have been full-term. Thus I think both my boys were in the NICU solely due to being multiples, but that Mr. A would not have made it that far if he were not.

But dreams about my future eventually gave way to reality, and we left for the hospital. My mother met us there. My husband and I had agreed that his job was to stay with the babies, and my mother felt that it was her job to stay with me.

They monitored the boys for a bit, then wheeled me into the freezing OR room. The room was teeming with people: a full NICU team for each baby, my OB and her partner, the anesthesiologist, a few nurses, and a medical student who got the fun job of holding the little tray while I vomited into it. I have always reacted poorly to medications of any sort, and the spinal and morphine and whatever else they used was no different. My husband came in, dressed to impress in sterile gear, and held my hand while they made the incision. There was a lot of tugging, which felt very odd. Mr. A was really wedged into my pelvis, and extracting him was difficult. But I heard them say, “Here he is!”

Someone—probably a NICU doctor—showed me my firstborn for less than a heartbeat. I was not allowed to snuggle him as I so longed to do, but I could clearly see why: he was a very scary shade of grey, and not crying. “He looks so blue!” I exclaimed, but no one answered. “Will he be ok?” Then I heard a weak cry, and began to sob myself. He would, he would be just fine.

And then, “5:31 pm, Baby B”…and I saw my Mr. D. They let me kiss him. I heard them call out Mr. A’s weight—3 lb 12 oz. That was 6 ounces less than the estimate, but I couldn’t dwell on that. He was 17.25 inches long. They took Mr. D and weighed and measured him: 6 lb 2 oz (exactly as estimated) and 19.5 inches. A’s APGARS were 6 and 7, D’s were 7 and 8. I think they would have let me spend more time with Mr. D, but my Mr. A needed to go to the NICU, as he was having a very hard time breathing and clearly needed surfactant and intubation (not that I could see this, as my OB was still mucking around in my uterus, extracting placentas and massaging blood out and whatever else goes on). My husband left with them, as did my heart.

I was sewn up and taken back to recovery, where things did not go well. I continued to vomit, and began shaking uncontrollably. The nurse seemed unphased, but my mother was very worried, I was I. My husband returned briefly to show me pictures of the boys, then left again. A neonatologist stopped in to give me news I couldn’t yet process: Mr. A had a cleft palate and was doing much worse than he should be. I just wanted to be with them, to see my boys, to hold them, to kiss them. I was eventually taken to a room on the floor, shaking less but still vomiting. I was told I couldn’t see them until I could walk from my bed to the wheel-chair unassisted. They would not even let me attempt this until 5 hours after their birth. When they did, I feared I wouldn’t make it. I believe I walked those 3 steps on will-power alone.

I was wheeled into the NICU, and saw my beautiful sons laying in adjacent open warmers. Mr. D had an IV in his scalp and an NG-tube down his nose, and all the monitoring devices, but no oxygen. I was allowed to hold him for a few minutes. I cried the whole time, at the love I felt for my beautiful son. Mr. A was on an oscillating ventilator, had an umbilical IV and an arterial line in his right arm, an I was not allowed to hold him until his fifth day of life. But I cried to look at him, out of love.

I did not feel a “completion”—a sense of “now I have my babies”, an ending to a birth story. I never really did. I suppose it truly ended 62 days later, when both of my sons were finally home from the NICU, and I was able to hold them both in my arms. It was a very long journey, but worth every minute.

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Marissa

Marissa is mom to fraternal twin boys, born in January 2012. While one of them has special needs and the other does not, they are both pretty amazing. Marissa majored in linguistics, served in the Peace Corps, worked with autistic children, and was half-way through nursing school before being put on bed-rest during her pregnancy. While she hopes to someday finish nursing school, it seems like she couldn’t have asked for a better background when fate handed her two awesome boys.
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